UKRI’s open access policy for long-form outputs — monographs, book chapters, and edited collections — took effect on 1 January 2024. It is a separate instrument from UKRI’s better-known open access policy for peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers, which took effect nearly two years earlier, on 1 April 2022, and it sets materially different terms: a 12-month deposit window rather than immediate/no-embargo access, and a dedicated funding stream rather than block-grant-only support. This guide covers what the long-form policy requires, who it applies to, the exceptions UKRI recognises, how funding for compliance works, and how it differs from the journal-article policy and from other funders’ monograph OA requirements.
Scope: what outputs and what funding trigger it
The policy applies to monographs, book chapters, and edited collections (i.e. long-form, book-length or book-section outputs, as distinct from journal articles and conference papers, which fall under UKRI’s separate 2022 policy) that:
- Acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its seven research councils (AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC, STFC), and
- Are published on or after 1 January 2024, either while the underlying UKRI-funded project is ongoing or within seven years of the formal end of that project.
That seven-year window is a deliberate accommodation for how long-form scholarship, particularly in the arts and humanities and social sciences (AHRC and ESRC funding covers a large share of monograph output), actually takes to reach publication — monographs routinely take years longer to write and place with a press than a journal article does, so a policy triggered only by publication date without a funding-recency window would have effectively made most UKRI-funded monographs impossible to comply with.
Core requirements: the 12-month deposit window and licensing
Where the policy applies, the final published version (version of record) or the author’s accepted manuscript must be made free to view and download — via the publisher’s own platform, an online publication platform, or an institutional or subject repository — within a maximum of 12 months of publication. This is UKRI’s long-form equivalent of what CASRAI’s dictionary calls a date of first open access, but structured as a deposit deadline rather than the immediate, no-embargo requirement UKRI applies to journal articles.
The open access copy must carry a Creative Commons licence. UKRI states a preference for CC BY (the most permissive option, requiring only attribution on reuse), but also accepts other Creative Commons licences or the UK Open Government Licence where CC BY is not achievable — a materially more flexible licensing position than UKRI takes on journal articles, reflecting long-standing concerns from publishers, learned societies, and authors (particularly in the humanities) about applying the most permissive licence to book-length scholarly arguments, translations, and works incorporating substantial third-party material such as images or literary quotation.
This is UKRI’s green-style compliance route by default — self-archiving a copy to satisfy the mandate rather than requiring the version of record itself to be openly published by the press (though publishing the version of record openly, a gold open access route, also satisfies the policy and is what UKRI’s dedicated fund is primarily intended to support).
The “bedding-in” period
UKRI ran a bedding-in period from 1 January 2024 to 30 September 2024: authors and institutions were expected to comply with the policy throughout, but UKRI stated it would not actively monitor compliance or take related action during those first nine months, giving the sector time to adjust workflows, repository processes, and publisher agreements before enforcement began in earnest. This is a distinct grace mechanism from UKRI’s journal-article policy, which had no equivalent bedding-in period when it took effect in 2022.
Exceptions
UKRI recognises several circumstances in which a long-form output is exempt from the policy:
- The output arises from a UKRI training grant (e.g. doctoral training funding) rather than a standard research grant.
- A publishing contract was signed before 1 January 2024 that does not permit open access on the policy’s terms.
- The only appropriate publisher for the work (for example, a specialist or highly discipline-specific press) cannot offer a compliant open access option.
- Third-party rights clearance for material reproduced in the work (images, extended quotation, maps, musical scores) cannot reasonably be obtained on open access terms.
These exceptions are broader and more numerous than those available under UKRI’s journal-article policy, reflecting the more constrained and less standardised publishing market for scholarly books relative to journals.
Funding: the dedicated long-form open access fund
UKRI created a £3.5 million dedicated fund specifically to support open access costs for long-form outputs within the policy’s scope, separate from the block grants UKRI provides institutions for journal-article APCs. Applications ran in two stages — stage one opened 28 November 2023, stage two in January 2024 — with maximum award levels UKRI published as broadly in the range of:
- Up to roughly £10,000 for a monograph or edited collection published under a book processing charge (BPC) model;
- A lower band (roughly £6,000–£9,000) for diamond or other non-BPC open access routes;
- Up to roughly £1,000 for an individual open access book chapter; and
- An additional allowance (roughly £2,000) toward third-party rights-clearance costs specifically.
Research organisations and authors should check current figures and application windows directly against UKRI’s own published guidance and FAQ, since fund levels, eligibility detail, and application mechanics are the parts of this policy most likely to be revised as UKRI reviews uptake — treat the figures above as representative of the fund as launched, not as a guaranteed current cap.
How this differs from UKRI’s journal-article open access policy
| Journal articles & conference papers | Monographs, book chapters & edited collections | |
|---|---|---|
| Effective date | 1 April 2022 | 1 January 2024 |
| Access timing | Immediate, no embargo, at publication | Within 12 months of publication |
| Licence | CC BY required (narrow CC BY-ND exception for some third-party material) | CC BY preferred; other CC licences or Open Government Licence accepted |
| Repository/deposit | Publisher platform or repository, immediate | Publisher platform, online publication platform, or institutional/subject repository, within 12 months |
| Dedicated funding | Institutional block grants for APCs | Separate £3.5m long-form fund, plus block grant eligibility for some transitional/BPC agreements |
| Grace period on enforcement | None | Bedding-in period, 1 Jan–30 Sep 2024 |
The gap between the two effective dates and the materially looser terms for long-form work reflect how differently the two output types move through publication: journal peer review and production cycles are short enough that an immediate-access requirement is workable, while monograph acquisition, peer review, copy-editing, and production routinely run several years, and the book-publishing market (smaller presses, narrower profit margins, heavier reliance on non-APC business models) was not positioned to absorb an immediate-CC-BY mandate the way the journals market largely was by 2022.
How this compares to other funders and to REF policy
UKRI is not the only UK research funder or assessment body extending open access expectations to long-form outputs. Research England’s policy for the next Research Excellence Framework has signalled that open access requirements will extend to monographs submitted to REF 2029, following the same broad direction as UKRI’s policy but set by a separate body with its own scope and timeline — institutions should not assume UKRI-policy compliance automatically satisfies REF requirements, or vice versa, and should check both directly. Other UK funders with their own long-form open access expectations, such as the Wellcome Trust, have historically focused their formal OA mandates on journal articles rather than books, making UKRI’s long-form policy one of the more fully specified funder mandates for monographs currently in force in the UK research sector.
Frequently asked questions
Does the UKRI monograph open access policy apply retroactively to books published before 2024?
No. The policy applies to outputs published on or after 1 January 2024. A monograph published in 2023 that acknowledges UKRI funding is not covered by this policy, even if the underlying research project is still active.
Does a monograph need to be published gold open access to comply?
No. The default requirement is that a copy (version of record or author’s accepted manuscript) be made freely available within 12 months of publication, which can be satisfied by depositing a copy in a repository even where the book itself is sold commercially through normal channels — a green-style route. Publishing the version of record openly (gold) also satisfies the policy and is what UKRI’s dedicated fund primarily supports.
What happens if a book falls within scope but the publisher won’t allow open access on UKRI’s terms?
If the only appropriate publisher for the work cannot offer a compliant open access option, or an existing contract signed before 1 January 2024 does not permit it, the output is exempt. Authors and research offices should document the circumstances, since UKRI’s compliance checks may ask for this.
Does the 12-month window start at first online publication or at print publication?
UKRI’s guidance measures the window from publication of the output; for a book that has separate online-first and print dates, authors and institutional open access teams should check UKRI’s current FAQ guidance directly, since long-form publication dating conventions vary more across presses than they do for journal articles.
Is there a fee cap on what UKRI’s long-form open access fund will pay?
Yes. UKRI published maximum award levels by output type and OA route (monograph/edited collection vs. individual chapter, BPC vs. non-BPC routes) when the fund launched, plus a separate allowance toward third-party rights-clearance costs. These figures are the part of the policy most likely to be revised, so check UKRI’s current published guidance for the applicable caps rather than relying on the amounts at launch.
This page reflects UKRI’s published policy and FAQ as most recently reviewed; UKRI periodically updates its FAQ (including on block grant duration and transitional-agreement eligibility), so research offices managing compliance should treat UKRI’s own policy and FAQ pages as the authoritative, current source.
